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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321842">To name a thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOracle/pseuds/LadyOracle'>LadyOracle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, F/F, Femslash, For the Love of Shadow Weaver, One Shot, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:01:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321842</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOracle/pseuds/LadyOracle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t get any ideas about calling me that, please.” Shadow Weaver said coolly. “It was a long time ago, and I have shed many names since I was given that first one.”</p><p>-</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castaspella/Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To name a thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I don't own She-Ra and The Princesses of Power</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What are you?” Castaspella asked abruptly.</p><p>“Hmm?” Shadow Weaver’s eyes were half closed; she was enjoying Casta’s index finger working it’s way along the tips of her ears.</p><p>“Shadow Weaver.” Casta said quietly. This time Shadow Weaver looked up at her. She was propped up on her elbow, looking down – quite seriously, Shadow Weaver thought – one hand on Shadow Weaver’s right ear, the blankets she had pulled around her a moment before falling around her bare shoulders. “I have never seen a human with ears like these, or with skin like yours – even before the spell of obtainment. What are you?”</p><p>“Oh.” Shadow Weaver shrugged. “I don’t know.”</p><p>Casta looked alarmed. “What do you mean you don’t know?”</p><p>“Oh, come on, Castaspella.” Shadow Weaver grew exasperated. “Not all of us come from such distinguished and recorded bloodlines. I don’t know what I am.”</p><p>Casta was quiet for a moment, chewing on her lower lip.</p><p>“Can you go back to what you were doing?” Shadow Weaver suggested helpfully.</p><p>“Oh right. Yes, of course.” She resumed her tracing of Shadow Weaver’s ears, though this time there was a pensive silence on her side that Shadow Weaver could sense even though she had closed her eyes again and was trying her best to ignore it.</p><p>Shadow Weaver sighed. “What is it? Something is troubling you. Tell me.”</p><p>“I just don’t understand how you can’t know.” Casta said explosively. She threw her hands up in a tiny gesture of outrage, a parody of the gesture she might have used had she been fully clothed. “And you – <em>you who crave knowledge</em> – never found out?” It was an obscene oversight on Shadow Weaver’s part, Casta thought, that she had no idea or seeming interest in where she came from.</p><p>Shadow Weaver was still; her eyes were open, and she was looking at Casta, though Casta could glean nothing from her expression. It was something she had noticed about Shadow Weaver in the months they had grown closer; her expression was just as closed when she wasn’t wearing her mask as it was when she was. She had perfected stillness.</p><p>“Your parents must have known?” Casta prompted.</p><p>“Castaspella.” Shadow Weaver began, and her voice was soft. “I’m afraid I didn’t know my father, and my mother was very reticent to discuss him. My siblings and I –”</p><p>“Siblings?” Casta asked with interest.</p><p>Shadow Weaver quirked an eyebrow. “Most people have some, no? My siblings and I were not alike, we all came from different seeds, and I’m afraid I was the only one with this – eh – swamp-like coloured skin.”</p><p>“It’s not swamp-like.” Casta said, somewhat defensively. Shadow Weaver smiled and Casta felt a tightening in her chest. It was rare she would smile, and even rarer Casta would be the cause.</p><p>“Anyway, that’s it. That’s the story.” Shadow Weaver shrugged again, unapologetically. “My mother never divulged the information, and I ended up with what I ended up with.”</p><p>She hadn’t moved from her spot below Casta, and with this new information, Casta sprung forward and placed a chaste kiss on her dry lips.</p><p>“Do you have any other questions?” Shadow Weaver asked; Casta had only pulled back a fraction and she could feel Shadow Weaver’s hot breath on her cheek and smell herself on Shadow Weaver’s lips.</p><p>“What’s your real name?”</p><p>“To know the name of a thing is to have power over it.” Shadow Weaver replied and didn’t go on.</p><p>“Your name can’t be <em>Light Spinner</em>, truly.” Casta whispered. “No mother would have named their child Light Spinner.”</p><p>Shadow Weaver laughed; a proper full-bodied laugh that took Casta aback and made her glad they had cast a spell to mute the noise from the tent to the outside world.</p><p>“Oh, you have very high opinion of mothers indeed.” She sounded amused.</p><p>Casta was just about to ask again, about to plead, about to cajole, when –</p><p>“My name, once, was Salieri.” Shadow Weaver stretched up, putting her hands behind her dark head, allowing the blanket to brush against her nipples as it fell. “Light Spinner is a ridiculous moniker, no? I was much younger and much sillier then; I often wonder if I would have taken a different path had I called myself something less grandiose.”</p><p>Casta was allowed her hand to drift over Shadow Weaver’s chest, enjoying the older woman’s shiver of pleasure.</p><p>“Salieri.” Casta repeated, trying it out on her tongue.</p><p>“Don’t get any ideas about calling me that, please.” Shadow Weaver said coolly. “It was a long time ago, and I have shed many names since I was given that first one.”</p><p>“Why did your mother call you that?”</p><p>“<em>My mother</em>?” Shadow Weaver looked at her and Casta sensed that she was nearing the end of her patience with this. “My mother didn’t name me; my mother did not give a care where I was, or what I did. I was named after the midwife who delivered me; there were many Salieri in our village, because many, many feckless mothers didn’t care enough about their daughters to name them.” Shadow Weaver stopped, perhaps sensing she had revealed too much, or said it with too much feeling, revealing a weakness or a sore point. She turned away, shifting below the blanket.</p><p>Casta was left looking at her narrow shoulders, her hair swept away. Casta reached out and ran a finger along a deep silvery groove in Shadow Weaver’s skin. Shadow Weaver winced.</p><p>“Is that painful?” Casta asked gently.</p><p>“No.” Shadow Weaver replied, her voice muffled against the pillow. “And please don’t ask me about the scars next; you know where they came from, Castaspella.”</p><p>“I don’t know why you’re so ashamed of them.”</p><p>Shadow Weaver didn’t reply for a long moment. “They’re ugly.” She said simply. “I know that and I prefer people not to stare at me.”</p><p>Casta’s hand faltered, then resumed. She scooted closer, hesitating and then placing soft kisses along Shadow Weaver’s back, were the scars crackled against her skin. She had been surprised, when she had undone the discreet buttons along Shadow Weaver’s dress the first time, at how bony the woman’s body was, how speckled with shiny scars it was. “Your scars remind me of the stars.” She said to Shadow Weaver’s back. “What I imagine the stars and the galaxies looked like, anyway, all whorled on your body.”</p><p>She saw Shadow Weaver’s fist ball the blanket and then relax. Shadow Weaver looked over her shoulder, and Casta noted the scar running across the nose, illuminated in the dim lighting. She caught Shadow Weaver’s face and pulled her in to kiss her, deeply, sincerely. When it ended, Shadow Weaver stayed where she was, leaning in slightly to Casta’s thumb, running over the cracks on her cheeks.</p><p>-</p><p>End</p>
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